Preface to "Russia: from real socialism to real capitalism"

This is the foreword written by Alan Woods
for Ariel Dacal and Francisco Brown Infante's book recently published in Cuba by
Editorial Ciencias Sociales. Already launched in Havana,
their book "Russia:
from real socialism to real capitalism" is an interesting analysis of the
reasons for and consequences of the fall of the USSR.

This is the foreword written by Alan Woods
for Ariel Dacal and Francisco Brown Infante's book recently published in Cuba by
Editorial Ciencias Sociales. Already launched in Havana,
their book "Russia:
from real socialism to real capitalism" is an interesting analysis of the
reasons for and consequences of the fall of the USSR.

Ariel Dacal and Francisco Brown Infante's
book is remarkably interesting, not only to Cuban readers, but to people at
large. It covers a very wide spectrum, from the usurpation of power by the Stalinist bureaucracy after Lenin's death,
through the evolution of the Soviet economy and the crisis of the bureaucratic
system, the so-called perestroika, to the destruction of the Soviet
Union. These are key issues of our times which must be understood
if we expect to comprehend what is going on in the world.

To the enemies of socialism, the collapse
of the Soviet Union is the ultimate proof that
Marxism failed and socialism is impossible. They speak about the end of
socialism and communism, and even the end of history itself. However, the
bourgeoisie's joy following the fall of the Berlin Wall was rather premature.
Events in the last ten years provide enough hard evidence that history is far
from over.

Everywhere we witness the deep crisis of
capitalism, characterized by wars, revolutions and counterrevolutions. This is
the most unstable period since the end of World War Two.

The authors conclude that Marxism is not
the culprit, for its ideas have never been more relevant than they are today.
Written over 150 years ago by Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto is the
most modern document available. Through plenty of quotations and evidence,
Dacal and Brown Infante make it clear that what failed in the Soviet Union was
neither socialism nor communism, but a bureaucratic, totalitarian caricature of
the former.

We Marxists believe that the October
Revolution of 1917 is the most important event in history, when for the first
time - barring the short-lived, if glorious, episode of the Paris Commune - the
masses succeeded in overthrowing the old slavery regime and started - at least
started - the socialist transformation of society. What a great achievement!

The Russian Revolution proves that a
socialist revolution is possible even in a tremendously backward country like
the czarist Russia
of old. Bear in mind that before 1917 there were only around four million
industrial workers in that country of 150 million mostly illiterate people. In
other words, czarist Russia
was substantially more backward than Bolivia
or Peru
are today.

From being an extremely backward country to
becoming the world's second power after the United
States, the Soviet Union's
transformation is one of the most remarkable phenomena in world history. For
all the bourgeois lying, twisting and slandering to try at all costs to
underrate and deny the Soviets' impressive accomplishments, this
transformation, with no historical precedent, highlights the superiority of the
nationalized planned economy over capitalist anarchy. In a couple of decades,
the Soviet Union built a powerful industrial
base which paved the way for educational, scientific and cultural progress. No
less important were their breakthroughs in healthcare and medical science.
World War Two revealed the Soviet Union's
massive superiority in the military field. The war in Europe was reduced to a
titanic struggle between the USSR
and Hitler's Germany,
supported by resources seized from all over Europe.
Both the Americans and the British were mere spectators up to the last minute.

After the war and despite the loss of 27
million of its citizens (half the total number of casualties worldwide) and the
destruction of most of its productive forces so painstakingly created by the
Soviet working class, the Soviet Union managed to rebuild its economy in just a
few years. In the 1950s and 1960s the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency admitted
the Soviets had a definite edge in many fields, including space exploration.

According to Leon Trotsky - who, together
with Vladimir Illich Lenin, masterminded the October Revolution -, socialism
had proved to be superior, not in the language of dialectics, but in that of
steel, cement and electric power, an incredibly important fact we must explain
to the new generations to counteract the slanders and lies of a bourgeoisie
intent on burying the October Revolution, just like the British ruling class
did with Oliver Cromwell's memory, stifled under a pile of dead dogs.

Yet, the issue of the Soviet
Union remains a contradictory one. People nowadays are entitled to
ask: if there was socialism there, why did it collapse? Neither the Stalinists
nor the self-professed 'friends of the Soviet Union'
have an answer to this question. And actually there's none if we accept that
there was a genuine socialist regime in that country. In fact, Lenin solved
this problem a long time ago when he often said that what Russia had was
not socialism but a regime in transition from capitalism to socialism.

Lenin stated that Russia was a
workers' state ("the dictatorship of the proletariat") and, in his
reply to Bukharin, he added in honesty that it was "a workers' state with
bureaucratic deformations." This is not the right time to go deeper into
this subject. Suffice it to say that Lenin and the Bolshevik Party were fully
aware that it was impossible to establish socialism in one country, much less
one as backward as Russia
was then. Lenin and Trotsky never saw the October Revolution as an isolated
action, a "Russian road to socialism", but as the first act of a
world revolution. Lenin repeated that idea over and over again in hundreds of
articles and speeches.

The defeat of the revolution in Germany and
other countries threw the Russian Revolution into isolation. The rise of the
Stalinist bureaucracy was the result of the isolation of the Revolution in
conditions of appalling backwardness. The defeat of the Bolshevik Party's
Leninist ("Trotskyist") wing and the triumph of the bureaucratic
faction headed by Stalin reflected the change in the balance of class forces in
Russia fuelled by the said isolation (exhaustion and disorientation of the
working class, vs. increased confidence of the bureaucrats who felt themselves
masters of the situation). Step by step, the bureaucracy overruled the working
class and broke October's egalitarian and democratic traditions by claiming a
number of privileges. Last in line was the annihilation of Lenin's party in a
one-sided civil war: Stalin's notorious purges.

As the authors explain very well, A matrix
of real socialism, post-Lenin Soviet socialism was never a valid, articulated,
feasible choice as compared to the previous system. There was never any
cultural replacement, taking into account that socialism is, above all, a
project based upon a new culture, for the new society is deemed to be able to
lay the foundations for a way of thinking different from the one that had
prevailed in history. Therefore, the outcome was not "a socialist society (nor
a capitalist one, that's true) but a new - statist, bureaucratized - form of
domination and exploitation, opposed to socialism's redeeming, fair and
liberating nature."

By the 1930s there was nothing left of the
Bolsheviks' democratic traditions. Bureaucracy had annihilated workers'
democracy. Yet they were not satisfied, for they felt unsafe, aware of the
crystal-clear contradiction between the Revolution's socialist ideas and their
own privileges - both legal and illegal. Marx explained long ago that the only
income officials in a workers' state ought to get would be the ordinary wage of
administration. The Soviet bureaucracy, and specially its highest strata, had
outrageous privileges and perquisites: high wages, luxury flats,
chauffeur-driven limos, special shops, and so on. They were totally estranged
from the working class; far from decreasing, the gap separating their lifestyle
from the workers' living conditions was on an upward trend.

Trotsky said that the bureaucracy would
never be satisfied about their privileges and its members would end up becoming
private capitalists instead. They could not pass on their privileges and power
to their offspring. In order to assure any hereditary rights, they would have
to convert state property into private property. In the end, the Russian
Revolution was not defeated by external enemies but by its internal enemies,
namely the pro-capitalist wing of its own bureaucracy.

Many find it shocking that the vast
majority of the old Soviet Communist Party leaders became capitalists and
businessmen overnight. Small wonder! Compared to this, the treason of the
Second International leaders in 1914 was merely child's play. But those who
still insist that there was a "real socialist" regime in the Soviet
Union will have to answer the following question: if there was real socialism
in the Soviet Union, if the Communist Party was really a communist party, how
come the overwhelming majority of its leaders went over to capitalism from one
day to the next, just as a man in a train goes from the non-smoking car to the
smoker to have a drag? The real reason is provided by the authors when they
remark that the collapse of the USSR
was not a mere accident, like a bolt of lightning that strikes on a clear day.
It was the outcome of a long process of bureaucratic degeneration which kept
the Revolution away from its genuine proletarian, democratic and
internationalist traditions. Those who fail to u nderstand this will never be
able to answer the most essential question: why did "real socialism"
fail?

In the last analysis, the bureaucracy
undermined and destroyed the nationalized planned economy. Leon Trotsky said
once that a nationalized planned economy needed democracy as much as the human
body needs oxygen. It goes without saying that Trotsky wasn't talking about the
caricature of democracy which exists in the West, where a small minority of
wealthy parasites own the land, the banks and the monopolies. He was talking
about the real Soviet democracy established in Russia after the victory in 1917.

In The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky warned:
"The fall of the present bureaucratic dictatorship, if it were not
replaced by a new socialist power, would thus mean a return to capitalist
relations with a catastrophic decline of industry and culture."

These words have been certified by the
events of last decade. The period of transition to capitalism in Russia (the
so-called "market reform") is the most horrific collapse of
productive forces in history. In only six years the Russian economy fell by more
than 60%, an unprecedented figure in the history of political economy. If we
want to draw a historic parallel we have to search among disastrous defeats in
wartime instead of looking at economic crises.

As the authors say: The distinguishing
features of the first transitional period (1991-1999) were chaos, disarray,
incoherent transformation, depredation of State goods, theft, concentration of
the means of production in the hands of a few, political instability (constant
changes of government), permanent crises between the President and the
Parliament, a growing worsening of the great masses' living conditions, and an
all-out struggle against any trace of the previous society.

Nevertheless, the introduction of
capitalism in the Soviet Union is not the end
of history. Marx said long ago that the viability of a given socioeconomic
system ultimately depends on its capacity to develop productive forces. Far
from representing progress, the restoration of capitalism in Russia is a
terrible historical regression in every sense of the word. This fact means that
Russian capitalism is reminiscent of the Russian folk tale of the
chicken-legged cabin.

President Vladimir Putin's apparent
stability is an illusion triggered by a favorable economic climate (high oil
prices) and the working class's temporary inertia. Inasmuch as there's not a
truly Marxist-Leninist party capable of offering a revolutionary alternative,
the Russian workers lower their heads and hope for better times. It's therefore
an unstable balance bound to be broken when least expected.

By blindly following the "free market
logic", the government expects to succeed in progressively eliminating
every social achievement of times past, which will unavoidably lead to social
explosions. In the last few weeks we have witnessed huge demonstrations of
Russian pensioners protesting against an unjust law aimed at cutting their
already meager pensions. It's a warning of what's brewing under the surface.

A counteroffensive by the masses is
inevitable. It would happen sooner and in a more organized, effective way
should the Communist Party struggle under the banner of October and take
Lenin's ideals as their foundation. Yet, with or without a proper leadership,
the masses will fight, and sooner or later will rediscover Bolshevism's
authentic traditions, the revolutionary ideas of Lenin and Trotsky.

What has happened in Russia contains
obvious lessons for the Cuban people. Following the demise of the USSR, the world
has come under the dominance of a superpower unparalleled in history, but this
superpower is a colossus with feet of clay. For all its immense military power
and massive wealth reserves, U.S.
imperialism is bogged down in Iraq.
Its criminal occupation of that country is costing at least a billion dollars a
week, not to mention an increasing number of casualties in both sides.

U.S. imperialism is striving to destroy the Cuban Revolution because its
existence is a serious threat to their interests in Latin
America. For that same reason, they want to destroy the Venezuelan
Revolution. But Washington's
strategists are fully aware that right now they can't think of a military
intervention - at least not a direct one. They are forced to use other methods.

The threat of counterrevolution in Cuba is real,
but the greatest danger comes not from outside pressure, but from internal
contradictions. The Russian example shows that the greatest danger lies in
sectors of the state apparatus itself who want the restoration of capitalism,
specially amongst those who have direct contact with foreign capital.

In a more or less concealed way, these
sectors harbor ambitions to become the owners of productive forces; that's the
greatest danger.

Still, the pro-bourgeois elements clash with a
very big obstacle in the person of Fidel Castro, who utterly opposes capitalism
and constantly relies on the masses to stand as a bulwark against the
counterrevolutionary tendencies.

To
protect the Cuban Revolution it's absolutely necessary to gather the
revolutionary forces in an anti-capitalist common front within which all
communist trends can freely discuss their various ideas and programs as they
fight shoulder to shoulder to defend the achievements of the Revolution against
bourgeois elements.

We have to fight bureaucracy and corruption
as the grounds where pro-bourgeois tendencies can take root and blossom. We
have to strengthen the proletarian avant-garde and trust the masses'
revolutionary instincts. Bureaucracy can't be fought with bureaucratic methods.

All over the world, the Cuban Revolution
has been a tremendous source of inspiration to both youth and the working
class. Defending the Cuban Revolution is an elementary duty to any conscious
worker or youth. We have to mobilize public opinion worldwide to counteract
imperialism's scandalous attempts to intimidate, isolate and suffocate the
Revolution.

Isolation is the key problem facing the
Cuban Revolution. Its fate depends ultimately on the spreading of revolution to
the rest of the world, starting with Latin America.
The Venezuelan Revolution's outstanding accomplishments represent a beacon of
hope, and as it grows stronger and becomes a socialist revolution will find an
echo all through the continent. Che Guevara's perspective of an international
revolution would then be within reach.

Despite everything, the collapse of the Soviet Union has not brought about the disappearance of
socialism, which is now more necessary than ever before. Capitalism - that
corrupt, unfair and obsolete system - can only offer mankind a future of wars, poverty,
hunger and degradation. The Cuban Revolution - like the October Revolution -
marked the beginning of a new prospect for mankind: a world of harmony,
fraternity and liberty under socialism. This is still our prospect and banner,
and the only cause worth fighting and dying for in the first decade of the 21st
century.

The American philosopher George Santayana
once wrote: "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat
it." This book is an attempt to give the new generation some of contemporary
history's most important lessons. It deserves to be read by as many people as
possible. After all, we don't want to repeat history, but make it again.